


Angels and Daredevils

by chicken_neck



Category: Daredevil (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Crossover, Demon Matt Murdock, M/M, The Arrangement, angel karen page, depressed matt murdock, more tags to follow peace sign emoji, so just like canonical matt murdock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-10-19 05:48:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17595626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicken_neck/pseuds/chicken_neck
Summary: Matt was not an angel. He hadfallen.He’d fallen for a reason.Matthew had fallen the same way a boxer falls. Under a deluge of punches. After fighting back with all he had, for as long as he could tough it out. Matt had fallen hard, and getting back up wasn’t an option.In which Karen and Matt are the new representatives of heaven and hell on earth as Aziraphale and Crowley enjoy a well deserved retirement.And Foggy? Foggy is just a normal lawyer trying to get by.





	1. Chapter 1

Acts 19:15 "And the evil spirit answered and said, 'Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?'"

 

 

Thursday night meetings had become something Matt regularly failed to avoid.

After a few months in New York, it became obvious that if he didn't meet Karen at a bar called Josie's, she would materialise in his apartment like an avenging angel. That is, bearing over-spiced chicken wings and slightly flat beer that she knew he was too polite to decline.

At least the bar she preferred was near his apartment, which he had scammed his way into by threatening to sue the landlord.

All the same, when he stepped in from the rainy New York night, shaking his umbrella at the door, he decided to give at least a token protest.

The bar was humid and warm, just slightly too crowded with the kind of patrons who need no better excuse to drink than a warm room to do it in.

Karen's physical form was a mere collection of smudged impressions to him. The heat map of her body, wrapped in rain-speckled cloth. the chrism of lipstick on her mouth, smudged by the transit of her beer bottle. When she hugged him hello, the warm scent of her neck carried with it the impression of incense and candles.

What he knew of her more strongly than anything else, in a dimension where ideas like “sight” didn't apply, was her true form. Wheeling fiery eyes, many headed, many handed. She was vast and incomprehensible and pure. She’d saved them a table near the heater.

As he shrugged out of his soaking jacket, Matt said, “you know, I'm still really not sure we need this. This Arrangement.”

Karen laughed. “I don't know if you want to tell Crowley that you're not following the guidelines he put out, but I'm not going to interrupt Aziraphale’s retirement to tell him we're not following their Plan.”

An experiment in free will. Matt spread his hands as he fell neatly into his chair. “Well, the whole point of their Plan is that we can make our own free choices.”

“Yeah, and I'll make the free choice to rat you out if you decide you'd be a better demon by sitting alone on the rooftops, brooding.” Karen tilted the open neck of her beer bottle towards him, “so you make your own free choice, based on that.”

He sighed, and dropped it. “How was your week?”

“Quiet. Still waiting on more specific orders from upstairs, so I’ve been filling my own time. Busy work, you know.”

“You’ll never run out of good that needs to be done in this city,” he said darkly. He unobtrusively snagged a beer from a passing tray (the proprietress of Josie’s would be shocked to find her staff offered table service, but she would also be shocked to find that their kegs of souring, nondescript lager had been replaced with a bright and refreshing IPA, so Matt figured it all worked out ok).

“I’ve noticed that, yeah,” Karen tilted towards him over the tiny wood table, “how do you even know if you’re making a difference, though?”

This part always threw him, when she acted like they were colleagues who could swap tips and tricks. Two professionals who happened to work for the two competing giants of their industry. Like there was no difference between the work they did. “It is hard to tell,” he said, evasively.

“I know right?” she said in undertone, “there’s _so many_ of them.”

And that was the root of it, in a way they were allies, because at the end of the day _everyone else Matt interacted with was human_. He found himself leaning over the table, meeting her in the middle, “They’re like _rats_ , they’re everywhere!”

“Rats created in the image of our father, each of whom is loved equally by Their angels,” said Karen flatly. “It’s like living in a _plague_. Even Babel wasn’t like this!”

“It’s a mess,” Matt agreed easily. “Before this, the last time I came topside was, oof, 1500s? It was a ghost town compared to this.” More of a ghost town when he’d left than when he’d arrived. Working with Pestilence was always awful, but at least Matt had got away with doing a little less than nothing, and still get a glowing commendation from Those Below for his work.

“I could save a thousand souls a week in this city and at the end of the year you still wouldn’t notice the difference!”

Matt hummed in agreement, “Crowley kept saying to focus on systems, instead of individual souls. The systems influence so many lives, you can make just a tiny change in the right place and bring a whole hoard of people closer to damnation, or salvation…”

Karen sat back in exasperation, “see, that’s the kind of mentorship I wish I was getting! Not all this, ‘well it’s all ineffable, dear, just do your best’ and ‘you’re doing great work my dear, no need to go second guessing.’ At least Crowley gives you actual information!”

What Crowley gave Matt, more than anything, was the impression that he could see through him completely. He had a sneaking suspicion that they had been stationed in New York so Matt could get away with just – not doing his job, veiled by the great churning mass of human good and evil around them.

“This is just great,” Karen continued. “I’ve been going about this all the wrong way. Not like Upstairs is any more help. I’m pretty convinced they can’t tell what I’ve been up to at all, I keep getting commendations for things I had nothing to do with at all!”

Matt laughed, “I had one last week like that, some great contractor deal was struck? I got a commendation on my attention to detail, apparently this contract damned everyone from the Department of City Planning to the contractors working on the build. I didn’t even know it was happening.”

Karen laughed helplessly into her hands. “Oh my, they’re so useless.” She wiped away a tear and took another swig from her drink. “Incompetents above us and below us, humans – idiots – all around us, and two very useless mentors across the ocean who don’t really seem to care if we do our jobs at all.”

Matt smiled warmly across at her, “almost enough to feel like we should be making our own plans.”

“Oh I know right? Those Above have no idea what it’s like down here. I think most of them could live down here a hundred years without getting it. I wish I could just keep managing my own workload.”

“Those Below are the same, I don’t know how they let themselves get so out of touch.” Matt absentmindedly fiddled with the edge of the paper coaster, gently fanning out the layers. “I can understand why Crowley picked me as successor. Even if I’m not great, I think anyone else would be terrible at it.”

Karen sighed, dragging a hand across her face tiredly, “I wish I had as much faith in Aziraphale, I think he just picked my name out of a hat.”

“No, I think. I think you were the right choice.” From what Matt could remember of heaven (which was everything) there was no one else up there he could imagine having these quiet constructive conversations with. “And hey, even if he did pick your name out of a hat, surely God would have guided his hand? You are the – the primary angelic influence on earth. God would not let something like that go to someone unfit to represent Them.”

Karen smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling gently. She rested her hand on her cheek. “I keep forgetting you’re not an angel.”

The warmth drained out of Matt completely. “Don’t joke about that.”

“I’m not.” She raised an eyebrow. “you know what it’s like up there, so much petty infighting. Everyone jostling for position. It’s nice to talk to someone with some genuine fear of God in them.”

Matt tilted his drink, just to feel the weight shifting in his hand, “we demons have more reason to fear god, I suppose. Proof of the pudding, etc.”

“Heyyy, don’t be like that. You know what I mean – reverence. Respect.” She draped herself loosely across the table to lay a gentle hand on his. “You don’t have to pretend the goodness isn’t in you, Matt.”

He pulled his hand away, rigid with discomfort. “I’m not pretending.” He drained his glass in a swift motion. “And I think I’ll be going now.”

Her gaze left prickles between his shoulder blades as he walked out.

Matt was not an angel. He had _fallen_.

He _had_ fallen.

Matthew had fallen the same way a boxer falls. Under a deluge of punches. After fighting back with all he had, for as long as he could tough it out. Matt had fallen hard, and getting back up wasn’t an option.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am literally posting this at 4am please tell me if you spot any typos. Also please help me come up with a less stupid title.
> 
> Catch me on tumblr @spindletrees


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our favourite Gay Uncles (or guncles) make an appearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to @Regencysnuffboxes for providing Gay Uncle Behaviour Evaluations and to @desmnathus for going to a posh school and knowing where commas should go.

_is love to come—love for your enemy_

_that is the way of liberty?_

_From forgiveness. Forgiven, they go_

 

_free of you, and you of them;_

_they are to you as sunlight_

_on a green branch._

"Enemies" by Wendell Berry

 

 

“I’m guarding a lawyer,” said Karen.

“Playing devil’s advocate?”

“Something like that.”

They were back in Josie’s again, and Karen’s words from last week hung between them, an elephant in an echoey room. She’d bought the first round as an unspoken apology, and given Matt the seat closest to the heater.

“Those Above want you to save his soul? Must be a hell of a guy,” he said, and regretted the weak pun immediately.

“Oh, he’s great. He’s working on, well just some very good stuff. What you were saying about systems was right. He’s in a great position to make a lot of good happen. I’m offering him a little Grace and support.”

“Helping him resist the temptation of business law?”

“And directing some money to his family. Their deli is thriving, which is good for the local community, _and_ keeps him focused on empathy and justice.”

“Didn’t our side come up with money? The root of all evil?”

Karen rolled her many eyes through a multi-dimensioned space. “As you well know, money is power. I am giving him the power to make good choices.”

“Well.” They ebbed back into awkwardness. It had been like this all evening. No matter what he said, it was the wrong thing. “I hope it, goes well.”

“Thank you.” More silence. “What are you up to?” she asked politely.

Not much, was the truth. The thin life he’d constructed for himself as Matt Murdock wasn’t anything worth writing home about. The deeds he did on behalf of his employers were equally small fry. “I’ve been stirring up the criminal element,” he answered carefully.

“How so?”

With his fists. In dark alleys, without the help of hell. He was learning what he could do with his human body, to another human body. “I’ve been working on increasing the level of street crime.”

Karen paused, like she knew he was hiding something. “Okay,” she said eventually. “And those are your official orders?”

He made a noncommittal noise. His official orders were, ‘keep up the good work’. New York spawned sinners faster than hell could damn them, no matter what he did.

 

 

Somewhere, sometime later, Crowley was in a garden.

The buzz of bees hung heavy in the air, though there was little left for them to buzz about. Some gathered nectar from the ivy crawling up the side of a sturdy stone bungalow. Others probed nostalgically at the last of the clover. Mostly, they tried to make use of this last gasp of summer, throbbing through them.

And there, in the golden sunlight of the late afternoon, a demon was frozen.

The buzz reminded him of something, something he’d meant to tell Matthew. What was it – something important? It seemed like it was something -

He wavered, swept up in the opposite of déjà vu. There was something he hadn’t seen before, and he wasn’t seeing again – something just outside of his grasp – some reason for this profound sense of unease.

There was an angel at the gate.

“Hello, my dear,” Aziraphale said pleasantly. The gate opened with a creak, because Aziraphale believed firmly that a charming little country cottage should have a creaky garden gate. “Apple picking?”

Crowley blinked, remembered the apple in his hand. Yes, of course. He’d been checking if they were ripe.

“Yes,” he said hesitantly. “Or, no, they’re not ready.” He dropped the apple, brushed his hands off on his trousers.

“Well let me tell you, book club was a _chore_ ,” said Aziraphale, taking him by the arm and leading them both towards the cottage. “ _Three_ people hadn’t read the book, and you know I’ve come to expect that of Abigail of course but both Arshdeep and Grégoire said they’d been _too busy_ but they thought they’d turn up anyway because it is, and here I quote directly, ‘a social club, at the end of the day,’ …”

Crowley said nothing, deep in thought, until they were in the cold dimness of the hallway. Aziraphale closed the front door with a gentle click. There was something –

“My dear, are you even paying attention? _Three of them_ , Crowley! And I had prepared a whole discussion on the themes –“

Crowley came back to himself. “We need to go to New York,” he said.

Aziraphale paused, then, sounding slightly wounded, said, “Really my dear? You know I don’t like to travel.”

In their retirement, Aziraphale could rarely be coaxed further than a summer sojourn to the south of France. At least one day a week, Crowley lost him entirely to their home library, which despite the constraints of a cottage, and indeed those of conventional spacetime, reached cathedral-like heights and had a bluish haze around the most distant aisles.

“I know, angel, but I have a feeling.” He snapped his fingers, and his rather unflattering gardening clothes fell away into a crisp suit. “We need to check in on Karen and Matthew.”

“Oh, far be it from me to argue with a feeling.” Said Aziraphale, unbuttoning his walking coat in the more conventional fashion.

“I’m not sure what but there’s something we were meant to tell them about…”

Aziraphale was aghast. “You want us to go to New York and you don’t even know _why_? Whatever detail it is we missed, I’m sure they can handle it. They have the combined forces of heaven and hell backing them up!”

Crowley paused, allowing them both to marinate in that statement for a moment.

“Oh well, _fine_ , you’ve made your point. We’ll go.” He sighed. “It’s just so _tiring_ to spend time around them, you know. Young people.”

“They’re the same age as us, angel. They are as old as anything can possibly be.”

“Oh, you know what I mean,” said Aziraphale, unwinding his scarf with a pinched, displeased expression. “They’re so _youthful_ and _inexperienced_. Karen is so _efficient_ and Matthew is so very … _chthonic_. The angst comes off him in waves.”

“If they’re young and inexperienced, it’s all the more reason for us to check in.”

Aziraphale sighed again, defeated. Crowley leaned up to kiss him gently, to soften the blow. Aziraphale wrapped an arm firmly around his waist to hold him in place. It was a dance they were well used to. Crowley wore rather fancy, impractical shoes. He had to stand on his toes so they could kiss. It rather ruined the moment when he fell over.

Crowley wormed his arms under Aziraphale’s coat and held him close for more straightforward reasons. “I’m sorry, angel.”

“It’s all right.” He kept his arm where it was, his thumb tracing a little circle against the fabric of Crowley’s suit jacket. “You know, we were going to read _The Time of My Life_ this month, and I can’t stand Cecilia Ahern, so perhaps it is for the best.”

They were going to go to America, quite soon. Aziraphale was going to do most of the packing, and Crowley was going to make sure the garden could fend for itself for a month or so. They didn’t need to say things like that to each other anymore. Crowley leant in for another kiss.

Outside, among the busy buzzy hives, the first of the drones was kicked out. The season was changing. A bloody, silent coup.

 

 

 

Matt didn’t think humans were idiots, was the thing.

He thought them many things. Stuck in the seething sea of them, he couldn’t help but notice the plurality. Some of them were shining examples of human goodness, some were truly loathsome. Most were neither. It washed out, overall, to a moral grey.

Infuriating, then, to go down among them and have that perspective shift. Even the murkiest souls had flashes of light, and even the brightest of souls were stained somewhere with darkness.

He perched on the edge of a roof and allowed the sounds of the city to map the space below him. Millions of humans were on their lunch break down there, making life difficult and stressful for millions more. From up here, he could sense the fascinating interplay of – everything. So many tiny missions, all culminating in a fluid dance. All spinning the water wheel of good and evil, invisible to all.

And because he _didn’t_ think they were idiots, he couldn’t help _judging_ them for not _seeing_.

He tipped forward off the building and let himself enjoy the fall. The wind whipped past his face, robbing him of his senses. At the last second, he pulled himself up and floated lightly to land in a piss-soaked, garbage-reeking alleyway.

It suited his mood perfectly, and he was just gearing up for a brooding walk around the city, when he noticed Karen’s enormous, shining metaphysical form was only two blocks away.

Oh, she’d be furious if he didn’t say hi.

With pained resignation, he summoned a cane and a pair of glasses from the ether and went forth to walk with the horde.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder that Matthew Michael Murdock canonically has depression.
> 
> Catch me on tumblr @spindletrees. 
> 
> This fic has its own tag now so you can check out updates and inspo stuff at http://spindletrees.tumblr.com/tagged/angel-fic


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our protagonist discovers the unbearable gayness of being.

“Matt!” called Karen, making a show of noticing him only when they’d practically passed each other on the busy sidewalk.

He took a second to stumble. “Hello, Karen?” he said uncertainly, moving his head to approximately where her voice had emanated from.

She laughed and grabbed each of his forearms in a secure grip. “Matthew, so nice to bump into you like this!”

She steered them to a quieter patch of sidewalk, shielded from the flow of foot traffic by what could have been trash cans, or fire hydrants. They smelled approximately the same in this neighborhood.

“Matt, this is, remember I was telling you I had a new job? As an assistant? This is the guy I'm working for.”

With the rush of the city beyond, Matt hadn't even noticed a human had accompanied them to their alcove. When he focused beyond Karen’s enormous and imposing presence, he noticed the flickering aura of a human soul hovering behind her. He smiled vaguely towards it. They all looked pretty much the same, though this one was softer than most.

“Foggy, this is Matt. He’s an old, old friend. We used to work together, when we were young.” The affection in her voice warmed Matt, and her technically-true introduction startled a laugh out of him.

“Oh, that’s cool!” said the human with interest, “You knew baby Karen? What was she like?  I somehow can’t imagine her wearing sparkle lipgloss and writing in a pink fluffy diary. Were there gel pens? Please tell me there were gel pens.”

Karen punched him lightly on the shoulder, laughing. Matt could remember every moment of his life with perfect clarity, including the one two weeks ago when Karen called humans a plague. He felt a flicker of surprise.

“- not that there’s anything wrong with gel pens,” the human amended, with good humor. Matt could feel his silhouette from how his body blocked the sound of the street behind him. Foggy stood with easy confidence, attentive without being sharp.

“We, ah, weren’t as close back in the day,” said Matt, deliberately allowing a smile crook his lips into a shape that made humans stop asking him things, “but Karen has always been a force to behold.”

He played the tape in his mind; a battlefield of carnage, the mangled and mingled remains of angels and demons indistinguishable at his feet, while wheeling above, the battle raged on between the greats. Matt himself plunging over and over into the angels’ ranks, ruthlessly felling mindless bureaucrats, complacent drones so full of self-righteousness that they seemed almost offended when Matt ripped their voices from their throats. And Karen, caught in glimmering glances. Falling like a lightning bolt, over and over. Leaving a clean path behind her.

If Matt had got in her way even once in that great timeless battle, he would not be standing here now.

She was still holding on to his forearms. “Matt and I only really got close when we both moved to the city,” she said warmly. “I really couldn't imagine my life without him now, though.”

“Well that is high praise! Any friend of Karen’s is a friend of mine,” said the human, and he proffered a hand for Matt to shake. “My name is Foggy Nelson. Karen’s been working with me as a paralegal for a few weeks now. Oh and uh, I’m offering you a handshake. At your one o’clock.”

Matt shook Karen’s grip to return the gesture, and she cozied up to his side instead, glowing with approval. The human, Foggy, shook his hand with the neat efficiency they train into you in seminars. “Nice to meet you! I’m Matthew.” Karen nudged him, “Uh, Matt Murdock, I mean.”

Matt liked the fluid movement when Foggy shifted his weight onto one foot, tipped his head to the side, “Where was it you guys said you were from?”

“Vermont,” lied Karen smoothly.

“Near the Canadian border,” Matt added. Which, well, was as close to heaven as anywhere else.

Foggy’s attention shifted slowly between them, “I have _got_ to get to Vermont. Is there something special in the water over there? Or did the state lose its two greatest beauties when you two came to New York?”

Karen pushed at Foggy’s shoulder, laughing. “Okay, Casanova, enough flirting. Matthew isn’t used to it, and he’s joining us for lunch, so you don’t want to give him indigestion.”

 “I am?”

“Unless you have anywhere else to be?”

Dirty play. Her wings twisted with laughter and in front of this human he couldn’t say anything in response. He let the light of her halo glint sullenly off the crystalline planes of his Being, shining it back into her eyes. She blinked five of them, and enough to lighten his mood.

“Luckily, I am between appointments at the moment,” he said. It would be something to experience, after all - human soul who has a pillar of heaven swinging on his arm like they’d been friends for years.

 

“So, what do you do, Matt?” asked Foggy as they stood in the bagel shop, waiting for a table to free up. He leaned against the wall, with one hand in his pocket. The smooth line of his suit crumpled into a focal point right over his hip.

Matt’s panicked mind defaulted to the only human profession which, due to recent reminders, he was sure still existed, “I’m a lawyer.”

In a dimension imperceptible to humans, Karen cringed and covered a face with her wings.

“What? That’s crazy! I’m a lawyer too. Where did you study?”

A place which definitely existed. “Here in New York, actually.”

“Me too!” Foggy was leaning forward, into Matt’s space, his aura sparkled with interest. “Fordham? Columbia? Cornell?”

“Ahh,” Matt leaned backwards slightly. He should backpaddle. Should correct himself. Should not be unmoored by this human leaning close. “I went to. Columbia.”

Foggy jumped a little, excited by their imagined connection. “Wow! I wonder if we attended at the same time? We’ve got to be around the same age, right? When did you graduate?”

Matt wanted to take another step backwards, except for how he didn’t really want to do that at all.  Clearly this bagel shop was. Too small. Very crowded. “I … actually technically haven’t yet.”

“Oh, you should have said. How are you finding Columbia? Is Professor Shankill still refusing to let computers into her classroom? I took her class with a guy who needed to record lectures for his dyslexia and you should have _seen_ her - uh. Figuratively speaking.”

 “I’m taking a semester out,” said Matt weakly.

“It’s a bit of a sore subject,” Karen murmured and it was a shock to remember that she was still there. Her seven flaming faces and wheeling golden eyes had been background for a moment. She touched Foggy lightly on the arm, redirecting his attention. It was an act of charity on her part and Matt should feel grateful but it made him – very angry, actually.

Interesting.

Foggy and Karen discussed matters at their firm for most of lunch, looping Matt in with jokes about law that he pretended to understand. Karen fabricated anecdotes from their home town, Matt nodding along and adding something technically true when he had the opportunity.

Matt found that he liked bagels. All the celestial spheres he’d experienced so far were tragically bereft of maltiness, chewiness, and garlic.

He also found that he liked Foggy. He was kind, observant, and whip smart. Matt liked the way that Foggy laughed with his whole body, curling in on himself and opening like a flower.

He found himself very grateful and desperately jealous of Karen’s ability to wring that laugh out of him. The mixed emotion left him with a hollow in his stomach which was for some reason untouched by the very chewy meal.

Karen excused herself for a phone call. Matt would usually eavesdrop but he couldn't even cast his attention past their tiny table. The shop must be busy, but he was overwhelmed by the loudness of the silence she left behind her.

In that void, Matt was acutely aware of the spaces between Foggy and himself. Potential conversation was an impossible field ridden with landmines and sink holes.

“So,” he began, totally unsure how he was going to finish.

“Do you mind if I say something for a second?” asked Foggy.

“Oh, of course.” Matt added a smile to prod his expression towards ‘affable’, over ‘sarcastic.’ It was hard to get it right, with his glasses.

Foggy hunched forward, elbows on his knees to get closer to Matt over the tiny table scattered with sandwich papers. The movement sent small gusts of air rolling over Matt, bringing the smells of sandwiches, of the city, and tiny hints of the heat from Foggy’s body.  

“Listen, I know we don’t know each other that well. But reading between the lines, I’m guessing you’re having some grad school issues?” Foggy said gently. “And I just want you to know that you’re not alone. Law school is hard, and there's no harm in taking time out to take care of yourself.”

“I –“

“No, please let me finish. I’ve _been there_ , Matt. But the biggest lesson I learned? You can't let yourself sit around and do nothing. Maybe you can’t do law school right now. That doesn’t mean you can’t do anything. You need to structure your time - I'm sure you've heard all this before –“

“I appreciate the concern,” Matt lied. “But there are, well, other factors at play.”

“Oh, obviously, man. I don’t know your situation.” Foggy leaned back, spread his hands placatingly. “And I don’t want to overstep. But take it from someone who knows, sometimes the simple things really do help. Just doing something with your time, no matter what it is. It all helps.”

“Thank you,” said Matt quietly. In the grand scoreboards of his mind, he didn’t know where to put that one. A point towards humans being good? Being idiots?  

Before he could figure it out, Karen was back.

Phones showed up interestingly in Matt’s vision of the world. The solid object was nondescript compared with the subtle beauty of the emanating waves. Karen was holding hers in a hand so limp he almost thought it was broken. The beams were shining down at the tiled floor.

“I just had a phone call from my-” Her pause was momentary at most, but Matt noted it with worry. “My uncle Ezra. You know him Matt. From back home, Ezra Fell? He’s coming to the city.”

Matt turned his full attention to her so quick that his own crystalline structure careened into itself, clattering. He reeled. “Will his … partner be coming with him?”

Karen snorted. “I’ll give you three guesses, and the last two don’t count.”

Matt’s smile was thin and strained, held together by the mild pressure of Foggy’s attention on the side of his head. “Are they here for business or pleasure?”

“A bit of both, I think. He wasn’t clear.” She frowned down at her phone, a pucker between her eyebrows. “They’re coming by cruise so I guess it isn’t urgent.”

Had Matt actually been studying law, the thrumming bird of anxiety in his chest would be a familiar friend. It was a feeling known to every human on earth, in some capacity: Wait, that performance was graded? I thought she was coming around _next_ weekend? That was due _today_?

 “You can get cruises here from Vermont? It’s sounding better by the second,” Foggy interjected, gently cracking the tension and tactfully reminding them of his presence.

Matt forced the expression of worry off his human face.

He wasn’t hugely confident in first impressions, but Matt knew for a fact that the deepest hells and highest heavens would be much improved by the addition of Foggy.

And bagels.

 

 

At the gate of the community center, the night was alive with clangs and voices. The smell of food and the melody of conversation drifted out on the breeze. Matt was reminded of nights like this long ago, when he was a watcher. His mind provided images of ale houses, forges, and fetes. Humans always liked to huddle around the warmth and light.

A woman with a clipboard ordered Matt towards the volunteer coordinator. “He’s tall, he’s bald, he’s outside unloading a truck. You can’t miss him,” she said, and went back to steering the tide of people streaming in and out of the hall.

Matt did find Luke easily. The truck helped, but more obvious was his flaming bright aura, extending for several meters. It was the soul of a literal saint. Luke’s fluid movements traced poetry into the cool night air, the aftereffects of his movements like a heat map in Matt’s eyes. He made sure to tap his cane loudly.

Luke turned easily at the sound of Matt’s approach, setting down a truly enormous block of cheese on the dark tarmac. “Hey man, did Misty send you my way?” He held out a hand, and Matt had to still himself from taking it. “I’m Luke.” He had a low, pleasant voice. After a second he realised his mistake, let his hand fall back silently to his side.

Matt stepped forward, slipping into the almost-comfortable persona of a suave young New Yorker. “I’m Matthew. I live just around the corner.” Matt gestured with his cane to the general air of industry around them, “You’re like a soup kitchen, right? I thought I’d check in, see if I could help out?”

Luke laughed softly, folding his arms. “Soup kitchen. Yeah, well, The Defenders provide a variety of resources to the vulnerable populations of Manhattan, but food’s part of it. We always need more volunteers. You got any skills?”

“I like to think so. But, you know …” he tapped his cane conspicuously against the sidewalk.

“I saw the cane, man. You keep swinging that thing about, people might think you got something to prove.”

“Hah, I  …” had nothing to say in response to that one. The tips of Matt’s ears went pink, his metaphysical body momentarily concave in embarrassment.

Luke’s laugh was deep and clear, it cast forth a swelling bubble of peace and joy. He unloaded another box, giving Matt a moment to gather himself.

“A friend of mine says I need more things to fill my time. You guys need more people, I think it could work.” Matt threw his cane from one hand to the other uneasily, jerking his head towards the church gates beside the community center. “Gotta say, though, I would rather not be Church affiliated.”

 “You’re not the first person with that concern, believe me,” he said easily. “We’re not church affiliated at all, though. Want me to tell you more about what we do here?”

“That would be great,” said Matt, relieved.

“Your hands clean? We’ll work while we talk.”

There are some who hold a systematic view of human salvation, that if a soul is stuck in darkness and does evil, it is those who cause the darkness who should be damned.

There are some who believe in true freedom, pure crystalline moralities, that even in the blackest hell each individual has a choice.

There are those who make sandwiches in the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that really was just 2k of Matt being attracted to men, huh?
> 
> Thanks to Hallie regencysnuffboxes for codename Ezra Fell. Comrade Crowley rise! 
> 
> As always, thanks to Christina for betaing and like existing also.

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me on tumblr @spindletrees


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